Learning and understanding

Irony is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?  So many people are walking, breathing, unaware examples! So, what brought this on?  Well, I was listening to people giving me their unwanted advice on my diet.  “You need to eat healthy!” (Because I obviously sit around sucking poison 24/7) and telling me to avoid meat, chocolate, alcohol, ice cream, rice, bread, potatoes, chicken, curry, fish... my interpretation is that they would prefer that I learn to eat by photosynthesis!  Anyway, these same “eat organic, gluten-free, peanut-free, exotic, all-natural, no fried food” pushers will then head off to a restaurant and inhale deep fried organic-free-range-gluten-free whatever. Or let’s take the question of equity.  For those of us privileged enough to form part of the majority, we can turn our backs on others and say things like, “That’s just the way it is.  Some things will never change!”  If we are gain acceptance into a previously closed group, all too often we want to exclude others too.  F

It’s been 19 years since I moved to Canada.  It’s been 19 years of living in a different country, with a different culture, different behaviours.  I’m happy that I moved — don’t misunderstand— and I was considering how I’ve changed in the time.  Growing up in Trinidad, there were several things that were core to me, although I might not always express them overtly. As a country, Trinidad and Tobago was always proud of being multi-ethnic and integrated.  Bishop Desmond Tutu once referred to it as being a “rainbow country.”  The blends of various ethnicities result in people in shades from deep blue-black to creamy white, with even siblings varying in their shades.  I was accustomed to dealing with people at all levels who would be referred to in Canada as “visible minorities.”  It is not, though, free from the evils of discrimination... I remember my grandmother talking about how she was looked down on for being a “dirty Indian” and that my aunts and mother were not accepted into scho

Martin Luther King day approaches for this year, and his famous “I have a dream” speech is played again.  I think that most people know this speech and its key tenets, ending with, “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, free at last!”  It was over 50 years ago, in 1963, that he delivered this speech in Washington DC, capital of the USA.  And still, there are so many strains of inequality that are entwined in our society, and so many people who are blind to them.  The stereotypes are so deeply ingrained that they’re invisible to most people unless we make a conscious effort to identify and change them. But, I hear you ask, we’re in 2018.  Aren’t we past this whole nonsense?  Aren’t the people who keep on about divisions in society just creating problems?  I don’t see colour, just live and let live. My friend, I’m sad to report that racism — and its attendant ills of xenophobia, homophobia and misogyny— is still alive.  While things are generally better than 50 years ago, t